If Alaska utilities trust Frank Richards, the president of the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, they will abandon all costly plans to import natural gas because he is confident that a gas pipeline will be built.

“I put my confidence level at 98 percent,” Richards told the Senate Resources Committee this past week.

So it’s a sure thing. Someone should have asked if he’d be willing to bet his paycheck on that prediction. Richards is again at the top of the pay scale in state government, earning a total of $527,764 last year.

Read More

The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation says it cannot reveal the governance details of the entity it set up to pursue the gas line because it is a minority partner with 25 percent of the project, while Glenfarne owns 75 percent.

Sen. Cathy Giessel asked AGDC to request Glenfarne to provide the Legislature with redacted versions of its agreements with AGDC.

Read More

The University of Alaska Board of Regents has adopted a plan to prevent the general public from knowing the identities of finalists for the UA presidency.

This means that many people with an interest in the future of Alaska’s university will be prohibited from knowing anything about the three-to-five finalists the presidential search committee plans to name in April.

Read More

Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom claims that it is a “disservice to Alaskans” to assert that she has done anything wrong, as I did here.

Dahlstrom also claims she did not violate the privacy of every Alaska voter.

She’s not telling the truth about what she did or the invasion of privacy that occurred with her blessing.

Read More

Sen. Dan Sullivan is trying to rewrite history about the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act, pretending that a 25-page form letter his office unleashed on July 28, 2025 didn’t use the letters OBBBA 101 times, and that he was already calling it the Working Families Tax Cuts Act then.

The Sullivan letter was rewritten in mid-November to erase all evidence of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act name, keeping the July 28 date and substituting the letters WFTCA in 101 places.

Read More

The Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct’s handling of the case that led to a proposed reprimand of Nome Superior Court Judge Romano DiBenedetto—and not more serious disciplinary action—has led the chief administrator of the court system in Nome to allege that the judge’s actions “are being swept under the rug at worst or whitewashed at best.”

Read More

Before Rep. Frank Tomaszewski and the 11 others utter another word about pumping up the 2026 dividend, they need to identify budget cuts and tax increases that total $1.5 billion to avoid a deficit. For some reason they have forgotten to do that again this year.

Read More

“So I think you were the guy,” an irritated Sen. Dan Sullivan said to Sen. Forrest Dunbar Wednesday, “that asked me last year about Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security.”

“When you asked me, I said ‘We’re not gonna cut Medicaid.’”

“You know who cut Medicaid for Alaska? Chuck Schumer. All right. That’s a fact. I wish that you and others could have gone to Schumer and said hey why are you cutting Medicaid for Alaska?” Sullivan said.

It’s not a fact.

Read More

Sen. Forrest Dunbar again asked Sen. Dan Sullivan a good question, one of the six questions allowed before the legislative discussion was cut off, leaving 17 questions unaddressed Wednesday.

“You’ve said yes to Trump many times. I’m wondering if you’re willing to say no?” Dunbar asked.

Sullivan never answered the question.

Read More

There will not be any questions that make Sen. Dan Sullivan uncomfortable when he speaks to the Legislature. And there won’t be many questions.

I’m not buying the cover story that Sullivan would love to answer more than four questions from select legislators, but he has a flight to catch. He wants to make sure he has time to answer at least one question from each caucus, the cover story goes.

Senate President Sen. Gary Stevens and House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon should allow for an open discussion and start the proceedings early, at 10 a.m. instead of 11 a.m., if Sullivan has a flight to catch.

Read More